If you see only one sexy disco art rock band this year, make it Franz Ferdinand. Admittedly, there aren’t many other options, but damn, they do it well. Whether it’s full on Roxy Music or their take on Bryan Ferry fronting Talking Heads, they hit hard. And sometimes they go for straighter rock that punches even harder.
If only they had the full confidence in their material to skip the arena rock cliches in pandering to the audience. Maybe if they had more faith in their songs, which they really deserve, Alex Kapranos could stop playing Simon Says to get the audience to clap and sing along. If he had only mentioned Boston once instead of dozens and dozens of times in a blatant attempt to ingratiate themselves with the locals, they could have squeezed “Bullet,” possibly their best song, into the set. With all the repetitions of "(your city here)", he went from suave lothario to creepy lech using cheesy pick-up lines. The band is tight and original, but these gestures just added bloat.
Opening act Bodega has listened to a lot of the Fall or their Krautrock antecedents. Their female percussionist/backing vocalist even brings Brix Smith’s vivaciousness. However, they were disingenuous in claiming to have no political agenda when they kept spouting lefty politics.
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